Glenn Greenwood is the best investigative journalist on the planet, in my not-so-humble opinion. From his superior intellect to his fearlessness, Greenwald’s dogged determination to call out all sides of the political spectrum when deserved is a rare commodity in today’s hyperpartisan world of broadcast and print media.
Greenwald devoted the second pre-launch episode of his upcoming nightly program, System Update, to dismantle the meltdown of the left-wing media over Elon Musk’s restoration of free speech on Twitter.
My favorite hissy fit came earlier this month when CBS News and its affiliates briefly fled (boycotted, in a snit) Twitter over “security concerns” before announcing their return less than 48 hours later. Who does that — other than a legacy media outlet accustomed to selectively reporting? The outlet’s decision to pause Twitter use came in direct response to Elon Musk’s Oct. 27 takeover of the company, which led to the layoffs of nearly 50 percent of his staff and mass resignations.
“These upheavals caused CBS News to grow concerned about the security of information on Twitter,” as Variety reported, which was total nonsense. CBS went off in a huff — like a child who doesn’t get what he or she wants. In CBS’s case, the “mainstream” media stalwart quickly came to the realization that it was cutting off its own nose to spite its smug face, which Greenwald understood, as well:
There are few threats more dangerous or repressive than the ability of neoliberal power centers to degrade the Internet into a weapon of unchallengeable propaganda, with dissent banned. It’s closer to being realized than many think.
You ain’t seen nothin’, yet — and it’s scary as hell. That is if the “neoliberal power centers” ever gain total control of the Internet, which has been and remains their ultimate goal, as Greenwald suggested:
There are few threats more dangerous or repressive than the ability of neoliberal power centers to degrade the internet into a weapon of unchallengeable propaganda, with dissent banned. It’s closer to being realized than many think. Our full monologue:https://t.co/om4r3JWbcX
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 26, 2022
After a bit of opening housekeeping, Greenwald went straight to work:
Last night (Friday night), we focused our monologue on the media’s truly panic-driven and demented meltdown over the possibility that there will be one social media platform on the Internet — Twitter — that they cannot censor and control.
The monologue examines the underlying motives and drives that cause corporate media employees to panic in the face of free speech, as well as the insidious and potent plan that is being constructed — right out in the open — to destroy any social media platform that refuses to submit to censor orders, the way they did to Parler.
We believe there is no more urgent issue than the full-scale, multi-pronged attack on free speech on the Internet. The censorship regime they are constructing will enable them to propagandize the population without challenge and fully control the flow of information.
That is why we are devoting our work and producing our show exclusively on Rumble, a company that we truly believe is committed to preserving free speech and defying censorship pressures not only as a brand but as a cause.
Any questions about why the left is terrified of Greenwald, who’s hardly a conservative? He asked two rhetorical questions:
If a mild amount of free speech is restored to Twitter, will this result in the murder of large numbers of people? If Elon Musk follows through on his promise to reduce the amount of political censorship on that platform, will large numbers of people in so-called marginalized groups end up dead as a result?
The questions are as absurd, incoherent, and laughable as they sound. It should be impossible to pose them with anything resembling a straight face and I will confess, in order for me to have said those questions without bursting out cackling, or at least coming to an ironic and contemptuous smirk, a significant amount of intellectual focus and discipline was necessary for me to get through those questions.
So why did Greenwald go through the above exercise, he asked:
So why am I beginning our program, tonight, by asking such inane and moronic questions? Because these are the questions being raised by our country’s largest and most influential media corporations.
In fact, they’re not just asking these questions; they are answering them in unity. And with almost no dissent or doubt included. And the answer to those questions is a resounding ‘Yes.’
“I know it can be hard to believe,” Greenwald said, “or a least it should be hard to believe,” adding:
But the wealthiest, once most prestigious, and most mainstream news organizations really are explicitly and earnestly insisting that Elon Musk is about to have large amounts of blood on his hands. Why? Because he intends to allow a broader range of political opinions and perspectives to be heard. There’s nothing else to it than that.
Greenwald could not have hit the nail more on the head. And why is the left — including left-wing members of Congress —so terrified about a broader range of political opinions and perspectives?
To these people, free speech is not a fundamental right. It is not the linchpin of political liberty, enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. To them, as it is to all petty tyrants and authoritarians, free speech is a danger; it is a hazard; a menace. Something that frightens them to their core.
They see free speech the way most people see a raging forest fire, or a contagious fatal illness, or a violent prison riot, as something that is scary, fatal, and therefore must be controlled — and then extinguished at all costs.
One need only take a quick look at the most repressive regimes in the history of the planet to understand the singular threat of which every one of them was well aware: Free speech, including a free press, posed a direct threat to their very existence.
Greenwald’s program continued, with one brilliant truth after another, and it is truth that today’s Democrat Party and America’s left-wing extremists most fear.
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